Facility aimed at interviewing youth without adding trauma

By
Nicholas Ibarra, Santa Cruz Sentinel

Monday, November 6, 2017

CAPITOLA >> If it weren’t for the one-way mirror and video camera, the room would look like a preschool playroom: a mushroom table, an artificial grass carpet and papier-mache tree complete with a child-sized sitting nook.

Unveiled Monday as part of the county’s new Safe Kids and Youth Center, this is where police and service workers will be able to interview children who are the victims or witnesses of crimes. The aim is to create an environment in which children feel comfortable opening up about traumatic experiences while minimizing further trauma that could be caused by the unfamiliar and unwelcoming environment of a typical police interview room.

Another benefit, said District Attorney Jeff Rosell: By bringing law enforcement, service workers, prosectors and even nonprofit advocates under one roof, children won’t be forced to repeatedly talk about what may very well be the most difficult events of their lives. Before Monday, child victims were interviewed by individual agencies at locations across Santa Cruz County.

“We’ll be interviewing children one time with everybody in the room,” Rosell said. “Child protective services needs different information than the D.A. needs and the sheriff and the chiefs need to get prosecutions going. This is one-stop shopping.”

The SKY Center is a collaborative effort of the newly formed Santa Cruz County Multidisciplinary Team, which includes the Sheriff’s Office; Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Capitola, Scotts Valley and UCSC police departments; the California Highway Patrol; county health and human services departments; and nonprofits Monarch Services and Walnut Avenue Family and Women’s Center.

“This is a partnership,” Rosell said. “That is one of the things that we in Santa Cruz have always done well, and that is work together and partner to make the community a better place, and in this case a safer place for children.”

Conducting the interviews and staffing the center full time is Child Interview Specialist Debbie McCann. A new hire for the county, McCann has 20 years experience as a forensic interviewer and previously helped open child interview centers in Contra Costa County and New Mexico.

“A multidisciplinary approach like this is considered best practice in California and across the country,” McCann said, adding that many counties have already opened similar centers. “The form is different, but they all have in common that it’s one location, a child friendly environment and everybody works together to minimize the number of interviews.”

Sheriff Jim Hart spoke briefly before a tour of the new center, as did 2nd District County Supervisor Zach Friend, Assemblyman Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley, and Monarch Services Executive Director Laura Segura.

Also present Monday was McCann’s own 10-year-old daughter, Althea, who excitedly showed off the interview room and its forest-themed decorations that she said she helped make.

Seated in the nook in the papier-mache tree, Althea chatted easily with the adults who swirled in and out, proving that, for one child a least, the new SKY Center was already a comfortable place.